The problem is that your rule matches in more than one way and the match
that is found first is not the one you want. There are lot sof ways to
deal with this. Here are just a couple:
1.
In[4]:=
l2={{3,4},{5,6}};
In[5]:=
l2/.{x_Integer,y_}->x
Out[5]=
{3,5}
Here is another:
In[6]:=
Replace[l2,{x_,y_}->x,{1}]
Out[6]=
{3,5}
Andrzej Kozlowski
Toyama International University
JAPAN
On Friday, December 21, 2001, at 05:57 PM, Brian Higgins wrote:
> I have the following list
>
> l1={{1,2},{3,4},{5,6}};
>
> and then I operate on it with the following pattern/replacement rule
>
> In[3]:= l1 /. {x_, y_} -> x
>
> Out[3]= {1, 3, 5}
>
> This is what I would expect. Now consider the following list
>
> In[4]:= l2 = {{3, 4}, {5, 6}};
>
> Then I use the same pattern/replacement rule
>
> In[5]:=l2 /. {x_, y_} -> x
>
> Out[5]= {3, 4}
>
> I was hoping to get
>
> {3,5}
>
> What am I missing? The FullForm of l2 is basically the same structure
> as l1, as far as I can tell....
>
> Brian
>
>
>
http://platon.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/andrzej/